re: today's Giants-Mets game

I'd just like to say that anyone who thought the HBP on Wright was intentional either didn't watch the game or wasn't paying attention. The game was scoreless at the time, there was a runner on first, no outs, and Cain had an 0-2 count on Wright. Why the hell would you intentionally throw at a guy in that situation? Anyway, Cain went on to pitch 7.1 innings and when he was taken out, he tipped his cap as he went off the field. One of the announcers--Mark Grace, I think it was?--immediately took offense to the gesture, thinking it was a response to the all the booing the fans were doing after the incident. I believe he thought wrong, though, as Cain was most likely tipping his cap to the crowd of Giants fans sitting behind the dugout. (Those living in the SF area may know that this NY trip was one of the big team vacation packages for the season.) So yeah, the announcer sounded like an ass to my ears. But maybe he saw the error in his words later on...I mean, they did acknowledge the group of Giants fans there when Molina homered, so maybe he realized something then. I can only hope. :P

[edit 8/16: It appears that I was wrong in my initial thought...now I think it was probably a combination of both, an acknowledgment to the Giants fans and a "yeah, I heard you" to the Mets fans. I'll admit my error, but I still think that announcer overreacted.]

And as I type this, Ian Kinsler just got hit in the head with a pitch. Gah. He immediately stood up, though, and seems to be fine, thank goodness. Looks like the HBP will be a big topic tonight on the sports networks. :/

I'll end this with a fun quote from the AP wrap of the game that I saw over on Yahoo!:

"Santana then hit Molina in the elbow, and Bochy argued that Santana should be automatically ejected. Manuel removed him for reliever Shawn Green while Bochy argued."

The pitcher's name is Sean Green. I had a feeling that someone would make that error, heh.

Monday Makeup Madness: Sephora Reviews Revisited

Previously on Framboise Noire, I wrote about an issue I had with some customers' reviews on the Sephora website. Well...at least that group of people actually wrote about the product in their review. Recently I've been coming across people leaving low reviews of a product not because they didn't like it, but because it wasn't readily available. See, for example, the following "review" left for Sephora by OPI's Dark Room:

"So I love getting Sephora e-mails to get the latest updates on what's new. I was super excited to see this beautiful color and went to the store the same day. To my disappointment our Hawaii store does not carry it and I was told would need to wait 2 weeks! I really think our stores should carry it especially when it is advertised in the e-mail."

Seriously, people? This is not the way to properly complain. How about something like leaving a comment on their facebook page? That makes more sense to me. More recent reviews for this particular color make sense, as it apparently does not match the color displayed on the website. Looking at the bottle there made me think it was slightly darker than OCC's Blackboard nail enamel, but I guess it's even darker than that...hmm. Another color that has had a ton of comments along the same vein as the above quote is 212-Sephora, but those are more, um, "ranty". The color is limited and apparently popular, so when they get stock for it, it's going to go quickly. Everyone needs to chill. :P Here's what I consider a good review:

"I have maybe a hundred nail polishes, and this just made the #1 spot. It's got so many different kinds of sparkle and glitter, but not in a god-awful teenage way. It's a little translucent on its own, so I layered it over a black creme for the best effect. It is also very cute on my boyfriend's toes!"

Okay, the last sentence was a tad TMI for my liking, but hey, to each their own, plus it gave me a good idea of what the color was like and whether or not I'd want it. It sounds really pretty, so if I happen to see it around I might snap it up. Not that OPI's cheap or anything (unless you know where to go, though that doesn't apply to Sephora's colors), but they are a good brand. I have a nice little collection of them, so maybe that'll be next week's post...

756, blah blah blah, "asterik".

I didn't write about the whole home run ball online vote thing because I thought it was dumb (still do--I mean, how much money is being spent on this when there are children starving and fun stuff like that), but I have a couple of questions about it anyway:

1) If, for some bizarre reason, Barry Bonds is found to have not done anything wrong as far as the MLB rules of that time are concerned, do we get to brand Mark Ecko with an asterisk?
2) Am I supposed to know who Mark Ecko is? I'm serious here. I'm not even sure if I'm spelling his name correctly.

I will say this, though: At least that Mark guy (unlike many of the people who have called the various radio stations regarding this topic) can pronounce "asterisk" correctly. Why is it such a hard thing to do? Even in commercials! There's this TV commercial going around right now for one of the cell phone carriers...a young lady is visiting the fake crappy cell phone carrier that has asterisks all over the place (i.e. "Unlimited text messaging!*"), including one of the clerk's hands. The lady calls him on this, saying, "You have an asterik [sic] on your hand."

...Ugh.

Re: Live Earth or whatever it's called

Maybe it's just me, but if you're going to have a bunch of giant events that a bunch of people attend, driving their bunch of cars in the process, for the sake of global warming awareness...isn't that just the slightest bit counter-productive?

I was hanging out watching TV with my father, and he briefly flipped over to the concert coverage. The Pussycat Dolls were performing "Don'tcha", and he was convinced that this was a cover of a Mary Jane Girls song. It took me a while, but I came up with the song he had in his head.

"In My House!"

I guess the two songs are similar. I think they're even in the same key, if I'm remembering them correctly. (E flat minor. Yes, I know it's disgusting that I know that.)